7 Things To Reflect On For Your 2018

I came to Ubud in Bali on 15th December to reflect on 2018 and to plan for 2019. Ubud is a city full of spirituality, magic and beautiful surroundings of narrow rough pavements, rice fields and Balinese men and women who place offerings 5 times a day at the shrines in their establishments.Their grace, kindness and gentleness makes this such a special place to be and visit.You cannot help but take on this way of being as you visit the numerous vegan and vegetarian palaces of eatery delight and pleasure, as you sit and watch monkeys doing what monkeys do, being mischievous and being the opportunists they are.

Ubud has been cited as the meditation capital of Bali, where people come to recharge their batteries, review 2018 and plan for the forthcoming year.This was my intention when I came to Bali for the whole month and this is what I definitely did.

As I sat and gave myself ‘head space’ to reflect, I saw that it had indeed been an amazing year for me.I hope as you do the same, you will be able to say that too. I believe that you are the one who gets to say and create what everything you experience is for you. You get to create your reality, nobody else. You get to say, whether the thought serves you or not and if it doesn’t then you get to create one that does. Your language creates your reality. So how do you relate to your 2018 and all that happened?

Do you relate to it as bad, or something you can learn from?

Do you see that everyone you meet has something to teach you about yourself and others?

Do you see that every day you get to create who you are and who people are for you?

I started 2018, not with a list of “to do things” but an intention that I wanted to continue and grow throughout the year, and boy did I do that.

So as the year came to a close. As I sat sipping a coconut from its shell, looking over a paddy field, I asked myself these 7 simple questions.It would be great if you haven’t already to do this exercise to.

1. What were your accomplishments this year?

Sometimes this can be hard for people to acknowledge themselves and their accomplishments.We can be so busy going onto the next thing, that we forget to stop, breath and tell ourselves ‘well done’. Of course I can remember some of my major accomplishments that I have listed below, but many I have forgotten. So this year I am going to create an Accomplishment Jar.This is a jar that whenever you accomplish something big or small, you write it on a piece of paper and put it in the jar.At the end of the year you sit down and read them.What an amazing way to finish the year. I can’t wait to do that at the end of 2019.

2. What are you most grateful for?

I really like this question.I think it is an amazing practice to do every day when we wake up.Ask yourself “What am I grateful for today? and cite all those things.I also sent a gratitude letter to all those people closet to me. Letting them know what I was grateful for about them.It felt so good to acknowledge them for “being great friends”, for “being there to support me when I was down”, for telling them that “I am grateful for your huge heart and love you show towards me”.Do this exercise and share it with your loved ones and accept the love that bounds back in abundance. We all want to feel appreciated and loved.

3. Who were the most supportive people in your life?

It is great to acknowledge this for yourself and to them also.When we appreciate people, they expand and grow.They get to see their self-worth and value to others.Was it your family, partner, friends, business partners, colleagues, acquaintances?Let them know how much they gifted you in your life in 2018 and watch your relationships grow. My dad has been so supportive to me and is always ringing me to make sure his little girl is fine. I am taking him to see the play Hamilton this year, so let him know not only in words but in actions, how much I appreciate his support and love.

4. What didn’t go how you wanted them to? What can you learn from them?

Note, I did not say what were your failures. Failure is just something we have made up as a culture that when things don’t go how we want, we failed. Rubbish. I choose to reframe that into, there was something for me to learn and develop here.It was just feedback.When I speak on stage, there are things at times, that happen that I could view as a failure.Such as knowing that at some point in the presentation, I lost the audience’s attention. But I choose to see it as feedback, as without it, I wouldn’t know what needed to be improved.So it is never a failure. It is just a sign that something needs your attention and upgrade.

5. Who are the people that I impacted and who impacted me for the better?

When I wrote out both lists, I was amazed, humbled, close to tears of all the incredible people who had come into my life.If you think about it.Of all the 7.7 billion people on the planet, those people choose to be in your life.That is something very special. Acknowledge the impact you have had in the world.

6. What are the things I am going to let go of, that don’t serve me or others?

Unless we ask ourselves this questions, many things can be buried in our sub-conscious level, running behaviour patterns in the background that we are unaware of, creating situations and circumstances that we do not want.

Write out a list of things you would like to let go for 2018, that you might be holding onto.Such as regrets, upsets, worries, unforgiveness or shame. All the things that don’t serve the greatness in you and breath deeply as you do.You might want to share them with somebody, or write them on a piece of paper and scatter it into the wind, or on the river.Anything so that you can mentally just let it go.

7. How did I grow and change?

Lastly, look at areas of your life that you grew and transformed. I began more adventurous, seeing myself as truly a creator of everything. Creator of my life, my relationships, my adventures and I had many.

I can see that I grew in my happiness, patience and kindness towards others.I head coached on a high performance programme, that was designed to be challenging.I came against people’s resignation, upsets, regrets and sadness daily.When I coached them through all of this so that they could keep on getting in touch with who they really were, their greatness, I grew, I expanded, I transformed.I love this quote “You get your greatness, when you enable others to get theirs” and I truly did.The more I served others, the more my life transformed for the better. They say, if you are not growing you are dying. So recognise, how did you grow and transform?

Take a day out and close off 2018 with a review day. I feel so refreshed, I might just schedule a review day a month, why not!

Summary:

This year has been exciting on many levels.

Head coached over 100 people on a high performance coaching programme for 7 months

Traveled to 4 countries

Spoke at The WIN Conference 2018 in Rome

Built a new support community with 10 amazing women in government office

Spoke at 30 events nationally and internationally to over 4,000 people

Delivered over 60 workshops and training over 1600 people on public speaking, pitching, networking and leadership development

Highlights:

Impacting so many peoples lives for the better

Speaking at events internationally

Loving my family more and more each day

Having amazing friends and family in my life

Celebrating and relating to myself and others peoples’ greatness

Spending a month in Bali and completely cleansing my mind, body and soul

So as we close out 2018, I encourage you to not let it pass without spending time reflecting on the questions above.

As I look out on nature, I can only see how amazing this experience of life really is.The people we meet, the air that we breath, the lives we impact and I say “Thank You 2018” as I welcome in what lays ahead of 2019.